Both Grace and Works

Last night, I blogged about the fact that, whatever our problems are, we can seek solutions to them from the Lord through prayer, making prayer a sort of panacea for the problems of life. Yet we usually have to do far more than simply to ask for our desired blessings. That's a lesson we can learn from Zeniff as well. In addition to paying for strength and deliverance, he also prepared his people for their fight against the Lamanites:

And it came to pass that I did arm them with bows, and with arrows, with swords, and with cimeters, and with clubs, and with slings, and with all manner of weapons which we could invent, and I and my people did go forth against the Lamanites to battle. (Mosiah 9:16)

Likewise, in addition to praying for help with our problems, we also need to work for them. Yet, the same can be true in reverse. In addition to any amount of work that we can do, we also need to pray. Elder David A. Bednar once said about as much in a talk he gave at BYU:

Individual willpower, personal determination and motivation, and effective planning and goal setting are necessary but ultimately insufficient to triumphantly complete this mortal journey. Truly we must come to rely upon “the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah” (2 Nephi 2:8).

We have to do what we can, but we also have to rely on the Lord. As has been taught countless times, we need both grace and works.

So, in addition to praying for solutions to our various problems, we also need to work for them. And in addition to working to solve our own problems, we also need to seek help from God. We need to do our part, and we need God to do His. We can't just pray for it, and we can't just work for it. We need both.